Apollo Alliance Action Alert: Green Jobs and Stimulus Package

I am a few action alert lists and I think this one is really important. I dont think my Senators need much education on this issue, but there are Senators that do, but I called anyways. Please pass this along and let your voice be heard.

From the Apollo Alliance:

Thanks to supporters like you, we've reached a turning point.

Apollo Alliance priorities – the right priorities – are part of the stimulus bill that just passed the US House.

But with the Senate about to vote, some Senators are trying to cut back on critical green jobs and clean energy investments – or strip them out altogether.

We have a major opportunity to turn our economy around and reduce our dependence on oil. We can't let our clean energy future stall.

Senators Boxer and Feinstein could vote any day now – please tell them to keep clean energy and green jobs in the stimulus package.

Few doubt that this stimulus bill is going to pass in some form or another. The question is this: Will it help end our addiction to oil? Or will it bring us more pollution and tangled highways? Will it harness America's breakthroughs in green technology, or will we continue to be left behind by Europe and Asia?

I'm particularly concerned about funding for green-collar job training – a key priority we've been working on for years, included in the House bill at $500 million but cut in half to $250 million in the Senate version of the bill.

If we want to retain and create jobs in the new green economy, we must train the workforce of the future to fill these jobs!

Tell your Senators that clean energy, good jobs, and a trained workforce must remain a priority in the stimulus bill.

This bill is an opportunity to get our country back on track! We need to mobilize people across the political spectrum around the need to make sure the right priorities are in it.

We can do this with your help. Thanks for taking action.

Phil Angelides
Chairman
The Apollo Alliance

P.S. Please spread the word! Here's a sample message you can send to your friends:

Hi,

Leaders in Washington are on the verge of spending over $800 billion to stimulate the economy. We have a chance to make sure it promotes clean energy and good jobs, to end our oil addiction and turn around our economy.

The Apollo Alliance has been working on these issues for years, and now many of their good ideas are in the economic stimulus bill. But with the Senate set to vote on the bill in the coming days, we need to make sure our voices are hear there as well.

I just wrote to my Senators asking them to keep these investments in the stimulus, and I hope you'll join me. Can you take a minute to write your Senators? Go to: http://ga0.org/campaign/stimulusbill_0209

San Diego City Beat: Dont fear the PLA

From the San Diego City Beat.

School district is right to negotiate with unions on Prop. S projects

When San Diego voters went to the polls last November, they were faced with a choice of five candidates for three open seats on the local school board. In one district, Richard Barrera was unopposed; in the other two, incumbent Shelia Jackson won with 61.1 percent of the vote, and John Evans beat incumbent Mitz Lee with 54.5 percent.
If they’d paid any attention at all, voters would know that all three winners were ideologically aligned with labor unions, and they might even know that Barrera and Evans are aspiring progressive politicians who in the past had either run for, or considered running for, other elective offices.

So it should have come as no surprise at all when Barrera, at the urging of the San Diego County Building & Construction Trades Council—the umbrella union for local skilled workers—proposed a project labor agreement (PLA) between the school district and the people who’ll be doing the work on the projects funded by the recently passed school-facilities bond measure, Prop. S.

Does a PLA benefit the unions? Absolutely. But, frankly, that’s part of what voters were asking for when then cast their ballots for Barrera, Evans and Jackson, who cast the three votes that directed school district staff to begin negotiations with the unions on specific PLA language. Moderate Katherine Nakamura could have gone either way, but we were surprised that liberal John deBeck took such a strong stand against a PLA.

The rest of the editorial can be found in the link above.

LIUNA Action Alert: Urgent Action Needed Immediately: Jobs Depend on It

Right now the U.S. Senate is considering an amendment to the economic recovery plan that
would invest more resources to build America, creating an additional 655,000 badly needed transportation jobs. Please send a message to your Senator now, telling them to support the Feinstein-Murray amendment to the economic recovery plan.

Click here to send a mesage to Congress now!

Congress is considering a massive, $800 billion-plus economic recovery plan. With a 15.3-percent unemployment rate among the men and women who build America - equating to 1.4 million construction workers who are jobless – the investment is urgent.

Senators Murray and Feinstein have proposed an amendment to include an additional $25 billion investment for roads and transit.

Tell your Senator now to invest more resources in building our transportation systems and our roads by amending the economic recovery plan.

It's a no-brainer. We can put America back to work and leave behind real assets for future generations by taking care of the essential and long neglected basics of our country - our roads, bridges, schoolhouses, and transit and energy systems.

Tell your Senator now to invest more in build America jobs, by passing the Murray-Feinstein Amendment.

The jobs of hundreds of thousands of Americans depend on us. Send a message to build America so America works!

Sincerely,

LIUNA Action Network

Hands Off Won't Work -Letter to the Editor

Below is a copy of a letter to the editor that I sent in to the Voice of San Diego in response to the proposed project labor agreement for San Diego Unified School District.

Hands Off Won't Work

By Charles Bradshaw, Mission Beach

Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009 | I support a project stabilization agreement for San Diego Unified, because the agreements work. It is too bad that the opponents are threatening and bullying school board president Sheila Jackson and members Richard Barrera and John Lee Evans. I commend these members for their courage.

I have administered several project labor agreements and know that they are one of the best tools for facilitating local participation. While I was in Oakland I administered a project labor agreement for the Port of Oakland that had over 60 percent of the workforce come from the local area. Additionally union and nonunion contractors bid, won and executed work. The Port of Oakland and the community met their goals. The Port got new maritime and aviation facilities, the community got careers and local contractors got paid.

These were public works that worked for the community. I believe that San Diego is capable of the same kind of success. Los Angeles Unified School District and other districts throughout the state have used these agreements to meet their goals of providing educational and job opportunities for their district residents. I have not seen any other tools that have been as effective at providing opportunity. A "hands off" approach has not and will not get results.

I have seen Eric Christen, executive director of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, attempt to intimidate educational boards in the past and unfortunately he uses inflammatory and bombastic rhetoric everywhere he does this pony show.

I think one of the worst parts of his rhetoric is that he actively discourages contractors from participating on projects. He spreads fear and attempts to create a self fulfilling prophecy by pushing contractors not to bid and win work.